Skelos: Senate details still in flux

Senate GOP leader moves forward with Majority Conference

Updated 7:09 am, Wednesday, December 12, 2012

ALBANY — State Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos said many of the details that will guide the chamber's newly formed coalition leadership were still being worked out.

And he emphasized Tuesday that all agenda items were up for discussion between his conference and the five-member Independent Democratic Conference.

Whether the talks would lead to specific legislative proposals making their way to the Senate floor was a different matter.

"We haven't made any decision or agreement as to what will come to the floor," Skelos told reporters outside the Majority Conference chambers, where he was re-elected to his leadership post by Republican colleagues. "The only agreement that we have is that we will discuss all of the issues that are important to (the IDC); they will discuss issues that are important to us. ... Our agenda is not changing."

Republicans will control at least 31 seats, although two races are still being tallied. Assemblyman George Amedore, who is still waiting for a resolution in his 46th District race against Cecilia Tkaczyk, took part in Tuesday's GOP gathering — just as Tkaczyk had joined with freshman Democrats at the Capitol on Monday.

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Media: Times Union

Asked about the "litmus test" of agenda items Gov. Andrew Cuomo included in an op-ed published last week in the Times Union, the Long Island lawmaker said, "I noticed that a few of the items he had there we had already passed" — including the 2 percent tax cap, the expansion of the state's DNA database and the establishment of a Tier VI pension package.

On campaign finance reform, Skelos said he thought a compromise could be reached to boost "transparency," but argued that current proposals for public financing of elections would cost an estimated $200 million. (Advocates for public financing called that estimate misleading and insisted the program would cost no more than $40 million per year.)

"But we'll discuss everything," Skelos said. He was similarly cagey on a minimum wage increase, a change that he has described as a "job-killer."

Skelos laughingly said that he wasn't sure who would be the first temporary president of 2013; he and IDC conference leader Jeff Klein are supposed to swap the position every two weeks.

Asked if returning Republicans would hold onto all their committee chairmanships despite the rise of the IDC, Skelos said, "I think there will basically be very little disruption within the Senate with the new chairmanships and staffing, that sort of thing."

"The more we hear about this deal the worse news it is for the people of this state who overwhelmingly voted for progressive change," said Democratic spokesman Mike Murphy in response to Skelos' comments. "This is nothing more than the same old Republican control and conservative policies that we have had for the last two years."